A number of devices such as racks and caddies for holding wire spools are found in the prior art. Most incorporate an axle where the spool is retained on that axle. This configuration causes a problem however during use when wire slackens and moves over the side of a reel. The wire will then snag on the axle or even a neighboring spool, requiring a user to disassemble the caddy to remove the individual spool and rewind it.
A few device configurations of the prior art attempt to solve this problem by providing external rods or other members confining one or more spools of wire. With this design when the wire inadvertently moves over the side of a spool it falls harmlessly to the side. The wire then needs to only be drawn taught and the spool wound to draw the slack back inwards. Riplinger, U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,863, Walsh U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,610 and Gaudio U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,777 are patents disclosing devices of this general configuration.
Several problems arise with some of these spool caddies of the prior art. If there are insufficient numbers of external members cradling the individual spools, the wire has a greater opportunity to move over the side of the spool. The external members themselves act as a stop against the wire movement off the side of the spool.
Another problem is the act of inserting the wire spool within the external members themselves. Devices of the prior art provide cumbersome mechanisms to add, remove or service the wire spools within a caddy. For example where an external member must be hinged to remove it outwards to allow access to the zone surrounded by the external members. The caddy might have to be held in an upright position to allow access to this zone, much like a cabinet. Another design requires springs to hold the external members in place and is requires difficult maneuvering to extract and insert spools.
In practice these devices can become intolerably difficult to use when an electrician is moving the caddy around in the field. The caddy is moved in different orientations and it would be desirable to have a caddy that can maintain the spools and easy access to them in any orientation, all while the external members maintain a sufficient grasp on the spools to retain them. Those spools of the prior art that must be maintained in a single orientation in order to function are difficult to use when an electrician is moving from place to place in the field.
Another problem is the ability to move the caddy about. It is desirable to have a heavy spool caddy transportable that can be alternately dragged or carried about a work site. The carrying of a heavy spool caddy is an orthopedic strain on the user, possibly leading to injury.
Yet another problem is the limited capacity of spool caddies. A user may need a wide variety of different sizes of wire, each on a different spool, during the course of a given job.